Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon review

A high end Ultrabook that only scrimps on performance

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a fantastic business Ultrabook, which marries fantastic build quality and lightweight design with top performance and a range of genuinely useful business features, both in the hardware and built into Windows.

The quality of the keyboard and trackpad set a new standard in Windows Ultrabooks, making it one of the most comfortable keyboards we've had the pleasure to use.

Couple this with the excellent trackpad, and you have a laptop that's destined to be a trusty companion for hardened business executives and work-orientated home users alike.

We liked

The brilliant keyboard is a huge plus point, and anyone who spends their time writing long documents will love the comfort of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. The build quality all over is a cut above most laptops, and the soft finish offers a luxurious feel that's also resistant to bumps and scratches.

Battery life is a huge triumph, and despite managing 2.5 hours in our stress tests, there's over five hours available here if you use the built-in power settings to manage your usage more stringently.

This makes it one off the most impressive Ultrabooks we've seen for longevity, and when coupled with the frankly frightening RapidCharge technology, you can genuinely achieve all-day usage.

However, the huge SSD drive, super-fast boot times and blistering processor performance make for a superb overall experience.

We disliked

The lack of connectivity options is a negative point, and this will be a bug-bear for people who use the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon for business. There's no Ethernet or display connections without adaptors, which is the least you'd expect on such a business-orientated machine.

The next downside is the screen. The resolution is high, but this doesn't result in equivalently amazing clarity. The colour vibrancy is low, movies look flat, and even text can look grainy, and it's this last symptom of the panel that irritated us the most.

Final verdict

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a boardroom winner that offers great all-round performance and comfort in a lightweight package.

The few niggles with the screen and connections aside, if we chose one Ultrabook to be our business companion, we'd hire the comfortable, high performance and long lasting Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon every time.